OHCHR’s and Pillay’s positions contradictory
Friday, 18th July 2014
by Shamindra Ferdinando
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Wednesday (July 16) said that it wouldn’t release the names of the investigation team tasked with probing the war crimes allegations against the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) as well as the LTTE, though Ms Sandra Beidas was named its coordinator.
OHCHR spokesperson Rupert Colville was answering a question by The Island on the ongoing investigation, as mandated by the UNHRC Resolution 25/1 adopted in last March.
A query on the composition of the investigation team was among a series of questions we posed to the OHCHR over two weeks ago. However, Colville declined to respond to the remaining seven questions.
Colville, who was on leave since July 4 returned to office on July 14. The spokesperson for High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein said: "While we felt it is important to announce the coordinator of the investigation, OHCHR does not normally release details of the staff team working on any particular issue, and we will not be doing so in this case either. Again this is standard practice, whether it is an OHCHR-led investigation like this one, or an independent Commission of Inquiry to whom we loan staff.
Prince al-Hussein’s predecessor, Navanethem Pillay, having announced the appointment of Britisher Beidas, earlier of Amnesty International fame, as the coordinator of the investigation team in a letter dated July 5 sent to External Affairs Minister, Prof. G. L. Peiris said that the selection of other members of the probe team was underway. Ms Pillay said that the process would be finalised soon.
Colville attributed the delay in OHCHR responding to The Island query to the UN agency being "a little bit overwhelmed with major human rights crises across the world at the moment – Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Syria, Ukraine, Central African Republic, South Sudan etc. etc. The rights spokesman said that The Island wasn’t the only newspaper kept waiting.
An authoritative government official told The Island that the OHCHR was yet to outline the procedures relating to the investigation, though Ms. Pillay has declared that Beidas’ Geneva-based investigation team will be operational for ten months from mid-June, 2014.
The OHCHR’s refusal to divulge the identities of investigation team members has come as a surprise against the backdrop of Pillay’s assurance that a panel comprising Silvia Cartwright (former New Zealand HC judge), Asma Jahangir (former President of Pakistan’s Supreme Court Bar Association and of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan) and Martti Ahtisaari (former Finish President) would only play a supportive and advisory role to the investigation team and wouldn’t lead the investigation team.
Pillay said in her letter dated July 5: "Their purpose would be to provide expert advice and guidance to the investigation, but also to accompany the process and provide an independent verification of the investigation."
Colville’s statement that the names of the investigation team wouldn’t be divulged was contrary to Ms. Pillay’s position, the GoSL official said. If Pillay intended to keep identities of the members secret, she wouldn’t have sought Sri Lanka’s permission for the investigators to undertake field visits between July and November, 2014. As Pillay had also called for the appointment of a high level GoSL representative to work with the investigating team, the decision against revealing the identities was surprising, the official said.
Colville said that OHCHR would provide a brief oral update to the 27th HRC session in September and a comprehensive final report to the 28th session in March next year.
Explaining the OHCHR’s inability to respond to The Island queries, Colville said: "While, if necessary, we may also make specific points about specific issues on other occasions, we will not be carrying out a running commentary on how the investigation is being carried out – that never happens with inquiries such as these."
The official said the investigation team would look into violations committed by the LTTE, including child recruitment.
The following questions submitted to OHCHR through the UN mission in Colombo went unanswered. We wrote:
Now that UN investigation on accountability issues in Sri Lanka during Feb 2002-May 2009 is underway, The Island, would like to clarify some matters with UNHRC spokesperson.
Questions:
(1) Against backdrop of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) denying UN investigators as well as three-member panel an opportunity to visit the country, would you seek access to those who had provided information to the Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka (According to the Report of the Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka released on March 31, 2011, the panel received over 4,000 submissions from more than 2,300 persons- point number 17/page 5 of the report).
(2) Would you request the Secretary General’s Panel of Experts to declassify its records to facilitate your investigation (According to the report issued on March 31, 2011, records wouldn’t be available for examination for a period of 20 years- 20 years from March 31, 2011- point number 23/page 6 of the report).
(3) As the US resolution adopted at the last session of the UNHRC in March, 2014, was largely based on the Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, would UN investigators examine the evidence/information available to the Panel of Experts?
(4) Would you take into consideration hitherto ignored report prepared by The United Nations Country Team during the conflict? The report that dealt with the ground situation from August 2008 to May 13, 2009 placed the number of dead (including LTTE combatants) at 7,721. The report estimated the number of wounded at 18,479. (War ended less than a week after the UN stopped collecting data due to intensity of fighting- point number 134/page 40 of the report)
(5) UK media outfit, Channel 4 News in its first documentary that dealt with eelam war IV alleged 40,000 civilians perished during the last phase. Channel 4 News allegation was made in June 2011. However, various persons and human rights organizations have given vastly different figures with British Labor Party MP Siobhan McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden-Labour) declaring in September, 2011 that 60,000 LTTE cadres and 40,000 Tamils died during January-May 2009. However, a special Amnesty International report titled When will they get justice: Failures of Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission issued in September 2011 estimated the number of civilian deaths at 10,000. Would you summon UK MP McDonagh and Amnesty International representatives as well as the Channel 4 News team to establish the number of deaths on the Vanni front?
(6) In the run-up to eelam war IV in August 2006, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) recognized the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil speaking people; hence the political grouping encouraged the LTTE to go on the offensive. Senior TNA members attended passing out parades of child combatants during the Norwegian arranged Ceasefire Agreement. Would UN investigators speak to TNA leaders regarding their culpability? (EU Election Observation Mission in Dec 2001 alleged that the TNA benefited from LTTE terror at Dec 2001 parliamentary polls)
(7) would Wikileaks cables that dealt with the situation here (August 2006-May 2009) originating from US embassy in Colombo, New Delhi and London considered as evidence (Post-war study undertaken by the Norwegian government also examined WikiLeaks cables pertaining to Sri Lanka. The Norwegian report titled Pawns of Peace: Evaluation of Norwegian peace efforts in Sri Lanka, 1997-2009 revealed the examination of WikiLeaks.) The Norwegian report too was released in September, 2011.
From : http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=106952
